The Big Smoke

"Don’t think poetry: think biopic. This collection is ripped from the history books, but not limited to the facts; it’s suspenseful, even when we all know the ending; and part of the appeal is watching an artist inhabit a famous figure. The actor here is the poet Adrian Matejka, who masterfully plays the parts of the great African-American heavyweight Jack Johnson and his loving but brutalized women. The grim Jim Crow South, the flashy celebrity lifestyle, the shadowboxing with self-doubt — everything here drives toward Johnson’s legendary Fight of the Century against white champion James Jeffries. These poems are shocking and propulsive, like a prizefighter spitting blood to a soundtrack of Verdi; it’s impossible to look away."